17 - 19 May 1942, Barbara Anslow's diary

Rest of our goods arrived - lovely: cocoa, vitacup, muscatels, prunes, treacle,  jam, and cream of wheat. Bill was in Yen - 25.  We won't have to give up working at hosp. when Mum comes home after all, beause now we only work half-days instead of full days. 18th May Mum got up for the first time, very shaky on her legs.  On the second day of her op, Olive and I thought she wouldn't get over it.  I've felt much better since being back at work in the hospital.  Olive is getting fat, but she isn't well – bad cold, throat etc.

All sorts of news coming in - about Italy caving in, peace terms etc., about gas in England:  victories in Coral Sea; speeches by Churchill that victory is in sight; that Russians have broken through Germany's spring offensive, and vice versa.  All liable to be discounted the next day, as all the news seems to be.

We have a little garden now - Olive, Dorothy (Holloway) and I.  Sweet potatoes planted so far. ((That garden was only about 6 ft x 4 ft, a piece of rough ground among the rocks behind the hospital, it didn't do very well.  Much later when the rations grew worse, some one (either the Japs or our own camp officials) decided to convert the pre-war football ground near the Married Quarters into garden plots, and our family had one there which actually provided us with some crops.))

Now I have so much to do in spare time - am reading World Geography, and Florence Nightingale; teaching Miss Hill ((a nurse)) and Tony (Cole) shorthand; plus gardening and bread making  -  chiefly sifting flour because of weevils. Much more contented now.